the journal of a drinker with a running problem…

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rant

My 20-minute drive to work took me nearly an HOUR this morning. Hooray!

To give you an idea of how much I’m not overreacting, the first six miles of my drive took 40 minutes, the remaining eight miles took 10 minutes.

Yeah. And after sitting there feeling my brain caving in, hoping it was at least justified by some horrific 17-car pileup that left streets closed to a churning rapid of blood and a twisted pile of rubble, I get up there to find…nothing.

Apparently some genius down at the traffic engineering department thought rush hour would be a good time to close one lane of traffic so that some workers could do some light sweeping — apparently, because that’s all I could see them doing.

The offending offensive barrier.

I don’t see any work being done, do you?

Luckily, a nice, happy song came on the radio and I was able to pause my vibrant cacophony of curse words to momentarily sing along:

Sorry lady… that blows. If it makes you feel better, I think the Illinois Highway Department hates me as how they have been slowly surrounding me with orange cones. And then the workers go on strike. So those damn cones will be around for a month or so longer than they should have. Fabulous.

So, can you remember how long that damned project on the west side of 465 has been going on? My guess is 4 years, but it may be 5. At least it DOES look like maybe they’re finally getting someplace on it…

When Boy used to go to school on the other side of town, there was a 2-mile stretch of 3-to-4 lanes of interstate that routinely took me 10 minutes to traverse. It was ridiculous. Construction pisses me off more irrationally, but at least it’s there for a while and then gone. Just plain traffic backups, day after day after day…that’s the death by a thousand cuts.

We’ve been here almost five years and I think it started shortly after, so yeah, you probably nailed it. I don’t know what they got started on today but it probably means I’ll be finding a new way to get to work for the next few months. (ANOTHER new way.)

How infuriating! Unjustified traffic like that can send any mild-mannered jane into an irate yelling tantrum of profanity-saturated hissyfits. What were they thinking? I’m picturing hundreds of backed up cars filled with red-faced, bug-eyed drivers seething at the wheel with veins popping out of their foreheads and growing increasingly angry and reckless with each minute spent bumper-to-bumper. Is that really the type of driver they’re trying to cultivate on your roads? Get it together, transportation department.

Somebody PLEASE tell me why I haven’t read you before this. Saw your link from TB’s site, followed, read, read some more, came back to this entry as the most recent, and therefore the most logical point, to leave my first comment.